Supreme Court Gay Marriage Decision · 5:03am Jun 27th, 2015
I am glad that the Supreme Court has decided on the Federal level that same-sex marriage should be legal. I have long concluded on logical grounds that marriage should be allowed between any number of sapient beings who all consent to it: I'd argue that allowing homosexual couples to wed is a good first step toward this end.
How could I write what I do and believe otherwise? I write an Equestria in which Love is honored, regardless of the sexes of the persons involved; regardless of the species; and regardless of the numbers. Mind you, most marriages in Equestria are between two Ponies of the opposite sex, because most Ponies are heterosexual, because marriages with more than two people become progressively less stable the more added to the relationship, and because most Ponies are primarily attracted to other Ponies.
Which is of course true for Humans as well. Most marriages in America will continue to be heterosexual. If polygamy were allowed, most marriages would still be monogamous. And if we legally declared African gray parrots to be sapient and marriage between Humans and them legal, still most Humans would marry other Humans.
But the options should exist. Non-standard loves should not be scorned simply because they are non-standard.
This is a moment in which America has truly made legal and social progress.
YES.
As a nation, yes we did. As a people...well, we still have anti-gay pastors and the like. And don't get me started on the Middle East where ISIS is probably losing their shit as we speak.
:-(
(Slow clapping) Yes. Finally, the Federal Government has taken a decision out of the hands of the undeserving people once more, allowing our society to take one step closer to me being able to marry my sister.
Which will never happen.
Like Gay Marriage would never happen.
...
...oh. Wait.
3186084 Why the hell would they be losing their shit? Now they have yet another reason to want us dead—the Federal Government approves of Gay Marriage. Behind their masks of rage, they're probably giggling like a bunch of thieving kids who were told that the candy store was left unlocked at night.
3186105
That's exactly what I mean. I'd give them a long-winded The Reason You Suck Speech if the militaries weren't already dealing with the issue. That, and they'd label me as a woman who deserves to burn in their version of hell.
3186113 (snorts) What military? The only one in the Western Hemisphere that's worth the polish on their buckles (ours) is being restrained by a President and Congress who want to be able to say that the endless War on Terror (which was a waste of time anyway, thanks to our completely ridiculous Rules of Engagement) was halted on their watch and now are trying to run out the clock until the next Presidential election so the ISIS problem is in the n00b's lap and not theirs (this way, they can avoid blame for the aforementioned RoE and premature troop withdrawal).
The poor Kurds are being slaughtered, Iran is filling the power vaccums that occur when the ISIS animals are (actually) beaten (which, when this absurd "deal" with then Barry and the Gang are pushing through, is going to be a remembered as a Bad Thing That We Let Happen) Jordan is trying their hardest (but Jordan, yah?), the UN is nervously mumbling about (gasp!zomg!) sanctions, and what are we doing?
A few airstrikes a day.
And the ISIS Raeptrayn halts for no one.
3186134 Indeed. If Hillary wins the election, it's gonna be worse for everybody involved. I'm not sure if it's either gonna be worse here or worse in ISIS-controlled portions of the Middle East. Regardless, I get the feeling me and my family should move to Brazil.
Before Bill Maher imploded, he had the right take on this. Having gays marry isn't doing to lead to mandatory marriage to gays or to hamsters or whatever.
One sin leads to another in a endless spiral down to our death.
A sad world we live in.
God bless this world.
3186086
Homosexuality exists with or without homosexual marriage. What a refusal to allow homosexual marriage means is that it is necessarily extra-marital and can never lead to marriage. Why is this a superior state of affairs?
3186105
I am sorry this was done by judicial fiat. I was not sorry that this was done.
Why would you feel threatened if incestuous marriage was legal? Would you and your sister want to marry? Would legal incestuous marriage somehow force you or your sister into such a relationship? Would brothers and sisters then commonly marry? Would they be forced to marry? How? Why?
Why do you feel personally threatened by the possibility of improbable marriages?
As for ISIS, what difference does it make that they have another reason to want us dead? It's us or them anyway -- can either of us kill the other double-dead?
3186157
Hillary Clinton would make a really bad President, though probably a better one than Obama. Which is faint praise indeed.
It would still be better here than in the Caliphate, though.
3186192
Why is homosexual marriage more sinful than homosexual extramarital sex?
3186157 She will. The American People have been succesfully dumbed down by mass media, Hollywood, the low-standard public education system, and the food pyramid that the government pushed for decades that was heavy in carbohydrates that they'll vote for anybody who promises them more.
It's the same way the corrupt Roman Senate and the Caesars kept themselves in power. Keep the people fed (the Ancient Romans had a welfare system that gave handouts to whomever, similar to our broken system) and keep them entertained (they had free gladiatorial battles, theatre, and orgies; we have the NFL/NBA/MLB, Kim Kartrashian's ass, and...well, orgies) and they will let you bend them over the table and go to town on dat tender virgin booty, just keep the free wine flowing and let them watch those who are about to die salute people.
The bad thing is, you think moving is going to help? Firstly, the Federal Government will essentially rob you of your money and assets should you try to permanently leave, whether or not you renounce citizenship. Secondly, where will you go? The South and Central American countries are hotbeds of political corruption and/or upheaval; what isn't a fascist dictatorship craphole is a socialist republic dungheap (there is a reason the Nazis fled to there after the War; they had sympathizers in every government office).
Europe? Take a look there; you aren't allowed to have a gun, the Euro is unstable at its best, if you get too sick they might just euthanize you, and half of England is under Sharia Law; who knows about the others, we never hear about their Muslim issues beyond thefact that they exist.
Japan? About to be overrun by China (goodby, anime); we'll wake up one noght to hear that the ChiComs invaded in the wee hours and the Samurai Defense Forces are staging a valiant last stand in the gardens of the Imperial Palace.
Obviously not the Middle East, for the following reasons: 1) Duh. It's the Middle East.
Honestly, the safest place I can think of would be Russia...if you don't mind living under the moral equivalent of Viktor Von Doom.
The entire world is burning, and the only country in it that was originally founded to stand for its people and not its rulers is too busy listening to Nikki Minaj, watching Comedy Central for its news, and sucking down a greaseburger while scratching its piss-stained-boxer-clad crotch to see it. While Western Culture and traditional values are being taken out back and shot, while little girls are being beheaded in the streets for not wearing their hijab in the correct manner, while our own citizens are being tortured and murdered, while our guaranteed rights and religious freedoms are being overruled by an increasingly overreaching President, Congress, and nine unelected men and women, we learn more about how the latest smartphone and/or tablet will make our lives better, or why we should donate to save the rare Diamond-Glazed Northridge Snail Beetle, or what Kanye West and Justin Bieber ate last week.
America has, since her founding, been a symbol for the world, an example to all for how things should be.
And in the last hundred years, we have traded it in for moral decay, reckless decadence, and abject hedonism, exchanging our can-do attitude, our bravery, and our sacred honor for apathy, cowardice, and shamefully willing dereliction.
Because we have abandoned our position of leadership, the world suffers.
And now, for those of us who merely wish to live peaceful, productive, useful lives, there is nowhere left to run.
Our world, Western Culture, the culture that rose above the corpse of tyranny, the ashes of superstition, has ended.
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
And we have none but ourselves to blame.
3186192 He's abandoned this country. Get over it.
3186214 Damn skippy. How are we to better the nation if the people won't better themselves (both in the USA and overseas?)
3186211 Then the end justifies the means. I see.
It's the ramifications of it, Jordan. I understand that you are an Atheist; I don't know for how long or what depth your understanding of Christianity goes to, so please pardon me if I sound patronizing, I'm really not trying to be.
What has me worried is how long it will be before we start hearing how those Churches who stick to the tenet that homosexuality (marriage not rendering the sin moot) is a sin before God and refuse to participate in a ceremony that proclaims such a union holy before Him is called a "hate crime" and forced to perform the ceremony and make restitutions for "mental anguish". We already have mom and pop business owners forced to pay exorbitant fines and reparations/face closure due to them sticking to their beliefs; how long before having a traditional view of marriage is vilified because it isn't popular?
Now, replace homosexual marriage with one between a brother and sister. Or a woman and her Dachshund. Or a one-eyed post-op transexual with his/her transpecies male catfriend who recently exited an abusive relationship with his house.
We are on a fast-track to persecution of any religion (not just Christianity) that does not agree with whatever the socio-political flavor of the week is.
Essentially, tyranny by the (vast) minority.
That, Jordan, is what I feel threatened by. And I know, I know, "it'll never happen". Right; and I have a bridge for sale, if anyone is interested; prime real estate in the San Francisco Bay. Bit of a doozy to paint, but great view.
And as for the ISIS thing, it just gives them something else to feel hateful at us about that is actually true.
God dosn't have a most disliked sin, he hates all sin equally.
All sin is just as bad as the other in God's eyes.
3186237
No.
My desired "end" here is to see love honored by marriage, as long as the parties involved in the love and marriage give sapient and mature consent.
Homosexual marriage is good for EXACTLY THE SAME REASONS that heterosexual marriage is good, with the exception that homosexual marriages are reproductively infertile. But then, so are some heterosexual marriages.
The problem here is not gay marriage. The problem here is that the government has arrogated itself the right to demand that people not offend one another. In a freer society, criminalizing mere hatred and prejudice would be unconstitutional. Should we punish gays for our inability to keep to our founding principles?
As far as I know, dogs and cats aren't sapient. Houses aren't even sentient. The sort of house shown in Demon Seed would, of course, be both sapient and sentient, and thus should be given the right to marry. Hopefully it would be a nicer house than in that movie!
As I've said, I'm not really terrified at the thought of brother-sister incestuous marriages. And I have no idea what trans-sexuality, sex-change operations, or blindness in one eye have to do with anything.
Again, the problem is the government trying to control private opinions, not who marries whom.
Since we already are in a war of survival with ISIS, whether we want to admit it or not, who cares?
3186223 It's too late, really. Western Culture is not popular, anymore. If it is taught in schools, it's just talked about as the way of life that the evil, imperialist white devils used to conquer every land they came across, raping the women and killing the men and stripping the land, blahblablah.
Western Philosphy and Literature is hated, as well; Socrates and Plato want you to think critically, which is too haaaaaard, and Shakespeare is, and I shit you not, "too white to be relevant".
Personal responsibility is out, too; just blame society for what you've done wrong.
Don't pay attention to the news, it distracts from Angelina Jolie's lips. You want to watch it anyway? Ok, but only watch one news channel; never look at more than one to see both sides and decide for yourself what's really going on.
3186251 No wonder the both of us are in a nation surrounded by idiots. You and I need to speak more often, even if it's just words on a computer screen.
Give people the freedom to decide what they do with there lives.
That's how God meant it to be.
He gave us a choice of live or death.
He could of gave us no choice at all but, he loved us so much that he gave us a choice.
He didn't force us to love him or listen and obey him, he let us make our own decisions.
He didn't want forced love he wanted willing love.
For us to willingly come to him.
3186256 May I ask: do you know how to reply button?
God hasn't abandoned the people in this country though.
3186260 This button (>>). Please use it.
3186261 Derp.... thanks I was wondering how to do that for a while now.
3186262 Be glad I was here to help. :D
At least you're up front about being in favor of polyamory, incest, etc.
1. Marriage has a specific historic definition. Changing that definition to include "non-standard loves" is not within the power of the federal government.
2. The federal government does not have the right to either allow or forbid people to marry. Marriage is a human institution which is logically and historically prior to the state, and will and must go on existing in its "standard" form if the state is to survive. This, and only this, makes it a fact of peculiar interest to the government, whose charge is to secure the common good of the state. All of the other extraneous factors, such as whether the two (or three, or five) spouses love one another, are irrelevant as far as the state is concerned. Only the fact that the bearing and rearing of children is a matter of such great importance to the future of the state gives the government any authority whatsoever to meddle at all in marriage. This authority is limited to knowing who is married and who is not, and in specific cases incentivizing marriage if marriages in the state are not as healthy as they should be.
A government which pretends to grant permission to marry, such as by issuing marriage licenses, is already playing in the Land of Make-Believe.
3. By officially giving recognition to gay "marriage" and putting it on the same level with actual marriage (largely in terms of incentivizing them in the same way), the government sends a clear signal: what is important about marriage has nothing to do with childbearing. (You can even tell that this message was at least partly intentional: merely legalizing "civil unions" would not have satisfied the pro-gay activists, even if they were in every other way considered the same as marriage.) This is a dysgenic and dyscivic attitude which is a recipe for atomising society by breaking down the molecular bonds which the family unit represents. Of course this attitude has already become widespread in the West with the advent of feminism, contraception, no-fault divorce, legal-safe-and-rare abortion, internet pornography, etc. Yesterday's ruling is just one more step down this inevitable slope which certainly doesn't exist and is by no means, in any way, slippery.
EDIT: A little more, for clarity's sake.
By all means, allow freedom of contract. If two men wish to arrange a binding contract between themselves that resembles the contract typically given in marriage, the government should let them, and should enforce the terms of the contract. But the government has no business, whether by judicial fiat or by legislative vote, of incentivizing these sorts of contracts (why should it care whether Peter loves Paul or Paul loves Peter?), or of insisting that everyone must call them "marriages".
Tsk Tsk Tsk when sin leads to sin it has a pattern it starts as a idea.. a thought in someone's head than that idea slowly spreads
like a wild fire devouring all the previous senses of right and numbing it until the sinful idea takes root into the minds of all.
Homosexuality will eventually be accepted by most of society and those that still look at it like it's wrong will be looked down upon as wrong. In time, eventually love will be used as an excuse to say that I love anything or anyone I want (sibling, animals, objects).
It started small but became big and we were blind to it. Sin will lead to more sin and different kinds of sin not just gay marriage.
Look into the facts very closely and the pattern of sin and tell I'm wrong.
Again I say to all God bless you.
Do not use an excuse given to you by the world to counter what I say.
Wow... that just happened. That came out of nowhere.
Just saying I don't hate gays in fact I love them as I love everyone on this earth and anywhere else.
I only hate the sin as God does.
God loves everyone.
Not sin
3186250
"I am sorry that this happened because of it being forced on the populace, but it needed to happen, so we should just ignore the how and the dangerous precedent it has set, and merely focus on the end result, because the end result makes it all better."
However, the reason that some heterosexual marriages are reproductively incapable is usually due to a defect of some kind, on either the male's part or the females. Hell, maybe the little guys are just blind, or the egg decided to hang out on the other side of the street. However, there is one thing you cannot argue with; we are designed, by evolution or God or what have you, to reproduce via means of joining sperm to egg. This usually means inserting the penis into the vagina until ejaculation is achieved, or introducing the sperm to the egg via artificial insemination. As such, the male and female of the species have sex organs that physically complement each other.
Once again—the sperm is meant to find the egg. Whether or not the male and female individuals are able to bring this to bear without outside assistance is moot.
A male does not have the necessary organs to reproduce with another male.
Neither does a female with another female.
And love cannot change your 'nads or lack thereof.
As such, and considering the miniscule percentage point that the LGBTQ "community" presents worldwide, not just in America, one must conclude that homosexuality etc etc. is, in fact...
Unnatural. They cannot reproduce without outside help; they have no way to continue their species without outside help. As such, they are not anywhere close to what can be considered normal.
It's called drawing the line somewhere. Should we keep running towards the cliff edge we were warned about due to our unwillingness to heed the signs telling us of the danger?
"As far as you know" will only carry so much weight with others, Jordan. There are those who have tried, are trying, and will try to marry their pets and other animals; and now that marriage in America is not defined as strictly between a man and a woman...well. The door has completely been torn off the hinges. All it's going to take is for someone brave enough (and rich enough) to take it to the SCotUS.
As for houses, there are those who would gladly argue otherwise.
And that says a lot about you. The fact that they have the potential to become legal, flying in the face of centuries, if not millenia, of a near-universal taboo, utterly sickens me.
Don't be obtuse; homosexuality and transexuality are, pardon the term, kissing cousins. Unnatural relations both, one seeks to unite that which is not meant to be joined, and the other seeks to artificially create what might facilitate that joining.
The missing eye was just colorful wording.
Yes, and your point?
Also, you have not really answered my question of how long it will be before the religious persecution comes into play. Or do you think that will never happen?
Look, I know ISIS doesn't need a reason. I'm just saying that they will use it as yet another on their big-ass list of "Why We Are Butthurt At the World, Allahu Akbar".
3186299
3186277
"The state is only worried about the next crop of taxpayers and soldiers."
Pretty much?
3186307
I'd say the next crop of "citizens", whose moral and intellectual virtue (fostered by a stable family life with both biological parents present) is important for the continued healthy operation of the state, but basically, yes.
3186301 Because if you take away their means of hurting other people, radical Muslims resemble small children pitching a temper-tantrum and trying to make you scared by screaming how they're going to tell daddy on you.
3186312 That explains everything. :D
3186253 Gladly.
3186314 :D
Well said. Incidentally, I'd like to add that if strictly reproductive criteria were demanded in order to marry, I almost certainly couldn't. And since you're only a day older than I am, I think we can agree that we're both much too young to resign ourselves to a life spent alone.
I think, based on the show itself, Equestria is a place where friendship and learning to accept those different from you are key values. It's not that much of a stretch to assume that romantic relationships between creatures of the same gender would fall into that category. We don't see much of that because this is, oh horror, still a cartoon for little girls, and therefore marriages and families are seen as something your older brother does or the family you babysit for . . . or the sweet old couple who finally found each other and got married after all.
I bet Cranky and Matilda wouldn't be able to have little donkeys, and thinking that they should have to stay alone would be pretty heartless, don't you think?
3186251
As a Shakespeare professor who has been studying and teaching on the professional level for almost two decades, you are completely wrong about that. Go and look at the academic catalogue of most US colleges and universities, and you will find that most English majors are required to study Shakespeare and that Shakespeare is almost always a popular course for general education, too. And it's required in high school. Its death has been greatly exaggerated.
But I can't really object to Shakespeare's position as a totem for those who clutch their pearls about the Death Of Western Civilization. It means that my own position is relatively safe in a university where indeed Plato and most keystones of Western Civ. are under attack. And the attackers are mostly those who demand to know the monetary value of degrees and who expect that everyone study engineering or business AND that tiresome frills and extras like philosophy and literature should be axed.
Just thought that you might like to know this from someone who knows what she's talking about.
As a queer person (both in sexuality and gender) it makes me shake my head when I see people wring their hands about dachshunds and incest and all manner of weird shit.
I can assure all of you homosexuality has nothing to do with the above, and if you took away homosexuality those things would still exist.
And of course marriage is a totally natural thing instead of a manmade institution.
News flash: Most things humans do aren't what our ancestors did. Our ancestors didn't sit at computers, or ride public transport, or sit at desk jobs, but you can bet they had same sex relations.
I imagine that a society with a physical incarnation of the concept of Love in a prominent position would be more open-minded about this kind of thing than we are. Still, progress on our end! Now my sister and sister-in-law won't be spontaneously unmarried in certain states.
3186277
It's not that I'm "in favor of them." It's that they are possible forms of Love. Yes, they can exist in abusive and exploitative forms. But there the evil lies in the abuse and exploitation, not inherently in the polyamory or incest. And the romantic relationships are possible whether or not one allows them to be formalized by marriage.
The historical argument is terribly weak, since the "specific historic definition" is younger than you imagine.
For instance, do you favor the right of, say, two 20-year-olds to marry without parental consent? The right of a Christian to marry a Hindu without either converting? Suppose that an heiress is left orphaned -- do you not believe that her guardian should find her a husband? What if a man even of his majority should wed without consent of the paterfamilias, should not this be set aside?
The historical argument is also geographically-specific. For instance in forbidding incest you probably also had first-cousin marriage in mind (historically legal most places outside the influence of medieval canon law) and in forbidding polyamory you probably also had polygyny in mind (despite the fact that both modern Islam, historic China and ancient Israel specifically allow it).
If you refer to "federal government" as opposed to lower levels of authority, you are mostly correct (the Federal government would still logically control federal territories and international and interstate law). But if a Republic is going to die and metamorphose into Empire, why should only bad influences spread from the top?
If you refer to "state versus private," then it is indeed the business of the state to decide which marriages are legitimate, given any legal differentiation between married and unmarried condition. Who, if not the state, could make the decision as to legitimacy? Not "the church," as establishing a church would be a far worse evil than merely abandoning federalism.
If "many churches," then your proposed rule is a laughable security against the "wrong kind" of marriages being made, as all one needs to do is establish the Church of Gay Marriage or the Church of Sister-Marrying or whatever, and then get married there.
What would you do then, have the State dictate which religions are "true" ones? That would take you right back to the joys of 1619-1649 in Central Europe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvdbDw5bXnQ
That does not follow.
"One of the important purposes of marriage is childbearing" is not logically equivalent to "the only important purpose of marriage is childbearing." Other important purposes of marriages: economic and social alliances, childraising and stablizing sexual relations, still remain even in a sterile marriage.
Oh, and polyamorous and incestuous marriages are quite capable of producing children. Indeed, polygynous marriages can be more fertile than monogamous ones (as non-pregnant wives can help support the family while pregnant wives are temporarily laid up and then wives with newborns have to tend their newborns full-time for a while) and the only good argument against allowing sibilings to marry derives directly from this fact, coupled with the danger of crossed harmful recessives.
3186461
Sorry, bad wording on my part.
The argument was still congealing in my mind when I wrote that part. Again, bad wording.
What I should have made clearer was that because marriage is a natural institution, and the continued existence of any government depends upon the existence of marriage, it is not within the authority of any government to change the meaning of marriage.
Whether "marriage" properly includes unions between first cousins or between one man and his multiple wives is a matter for scholars to dispute. But what is obvious and clear is that it is an essential and indispensable component of marriage that it must have some intrinsic connection to the bearing and raising of children.
As far as the "rights" of X to marry Y, insofar as they exist, they are natural rights and can neither be conferred by human government nor taken away. So I favor an observance and a protection of the rights that actually exist, and a refusal to pretend to create new ones out of governmental fiat.
The state can legitimately decide for itself, to its own satisfaction, for the purposes of its own tax calculations, etc. whom it will consider "married" and whom "unmarried". This act of categorization is fallible and is not the source or cause of the real existence of any marriage. If the United States collapsed tomorrow, and a power vacuum opened up, and anarchy reigned, the married couples of the nation would not suddenly cease to be married for lack of a government to recognize their marriage.
Which is why they aren't quite as extreme a deviation from the natural law as homosexual marriages. Personally, I see no a priori reason why a nontheist ought not to support polyamory, though perhaps some empirical evidence could be scrounged up to argue the case. As for incest, the taboo itself is universal, suggesting to common sense that perhaps we ought not to fuck around with it; the only tricky part is where exactly to draw the line.
Then let me try to phrase it better. How's this: "The government sends a clear signal: childbearing and marriage are not essentially related."
Do these considerations, then, outweigh the government's duty to maintain the strength of the biological bonds of the family unit?
Consider what kind of philosophy a society must have in order to put gay marriage on the same pedestal as marriage. This is a society which idolizes emotions and fuzzy feelings, a sentimental society. It is, further, a society which trivializes procreation. Oh, you popped another kid out? Great job, sport. Your marriage is still literally exactly the same, legally speaking, as the one which can never in any possible universe have produced children. The mental rift between the act of marrying and the act of childbearing is nearly complete. In a society like this, will people think of their children or themselves before getting divorces? Abortions? Committing adultery? This society is atomized--people act not for one another, but for themselves, and form only the most fleeting of bonds, so as not to be tied down. A society which has so completely and unfeignedly lost its sense of the intrinsic connection between marriage and procreation, so as to consider gay marriage the moral equivalent of marriage--well, the real damage has already been done, the society is dying, and if it gives formal approval to gay marriage, that is just one more death gasp in its final delirious throes.
The pattern I've seen is that after same-sex weddings are legalized, they surge, and then the divorce rate surges as they find that the legal certificate cannot validate their relationships. Note how I wrote "Weddings" and not "marriage", as this is what their concern seems to be. While admittedly I have little personal experience with same-sex couples, from what I have seen they appear to be overly flirtatious, not really understanding that a marriage is not merely about love. It is a partnership, and even with political marriages(Or, as is still today common, marriages for the purpose of immigration) they are not loveless, dysfunctional affairs.
By the way, congratulations on being the first person on the Internet to support the decision without being an iconoclast about it.
3186491
Well yes, of course. Ponies Aren't Perfect, Humans Aren't Perfect, and marriage is not the end of all problems.
I liked Lyra and Bon-Bon's little rump-bump. It's not primarily a sexual thing among Ponies, you know. Show's made that obvious by having Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon do it; and Cadance and Twilight do an elaborately modified form of it. I seriously doubt that either of those couples are lovers, though of course I believe that Lyra and Bon-Bon are lovers.
I think they were doing that not so much as a flirtatious display toward others than as a happy display toward one another.
3186510 It's more Lyra's general "Bedroom eyes" throughout the scene. And even if they're not making a flirtatious display towards other ponies, on a Doylist level it's almost certainly one towards the fandom.
3186421
I have a half-sister married to a woman as well.
This is where the assumption that gays (and other sexual minorities) are such a tiny minority that they can, politically, be scorned is so dangerous. They have friends and relatives who are sexually less unusual, and who respect their sexualities. The Republicans are in my opinion possibly dooming the Republic in order to avoid yielding on this issue.
3186515
Oh, it's IMO a brilliantly-done subplot, because its depiction works both externally and internally.
Externally, DHX has to satisfy the Moral Guardians by torpedoing all these vile rumors that Lyra and Bon-Bon are (gasp) Lesbians! And externally, their repeating over and over again that they are "friends" is meant to be taken by said Guardians as meaning that they are just friends. This is reinforced by our often-predatory sexual culture, with its "friendzoning" largely coming from the assumption that sex is predation and one doesn't prey on friends.
Externally, one also notes that at absolutely no point did Lyra or Bon-Bon say anything to state or even imply that they were just friends. Indeed, their whole affect in that episode is one of strong romantic love, with love assumed, then apparently betrayed and threatened, then reaffirmed at the end. Lyra's tears when she thought Bon-Bon's love had been only a lie were the sadness of somepony who had given her heart to somepony else and feared that she had only been used, not merely of a friend not let in on a secret.
Internally, their conduct makes perfect sense given my assumptions about Equestrian culture. In my Equestria, lesbian love is not the norm but it is seen as just as honorable as heterosexual love; Lyra and Bon-Bon are in fairly late stages of a protracted Courtship that is very close to Intention and Betrothal (see "Country Courtship" and "City Courtship" for my theories about this) and it is quite likely that they themselves will soon become formally engaged and marry, which is WHY they were feeling so romantic about the wedding.
Because Lyra in the Shadow Wars is in a Fast Set (though is one of its least vicious members) and Bon-Bon comes from an urban background (Baltimare) they are a bit more open about the fact that they are lovers in the full physical sense than might be normal for a Ponyville couple not formally engaged, but this is not about homosexuality versus heterosexuality. The key here is allowable degrees of sexuality at various stages of courtship; few Ponies would believe that Lyra and Bon-Bon's love is inherently dishonorable due to its lesbianism, which is why they might judge them on other moral bases.
Neither of them, however, is promiscuous in my continuity: their love is reserved for one another, and has been for many years now.
And I have a sneaking supsicion that the DHX writers are making similar assumptions.
3186337
I do agree on this. And as you've noticed from my other comments, on a strictly reproductive basis my own right to marriage would be dubious, as I'm semi-impotent. My wife is also on medications which she would need to quit to bear healthy children, and which quitting would be dangerous. We're, unfortunately, likely to remain childless for these reasons.
Precisely. The political union of Equestria was itself predicated on a fusion between three very different races of Ponies. This is something which Humans have never accomplished to a similar degree -- suppose that Europeans could telekinese, East Asians could fly and Africans could magically grow crops -- how easy would it be for us to build something like the United States of America on a basis of full equality under the law? That's basically what Equestrians have accomplished.
In the Shadow Wars Storyverse, the degree of rationality in judicial philosophy and cultural tolerance needed to make this possible are why Equestria is ideal as the unifying center for the whole Earth (which has literally dozens of sapient, tool-using species) and eventually the nucleus of an interstellar civilization. The Equestrian Ponies have extensive experience in dealing with alien sapients before they ever leave their homeworld.
This is of course a problem with the difference between the effective social age of the characters and the age of the audience: mares the age of the Mane Six are almost certainly courting, marrying, and having sex at some point in the process. The show mostly covers this fairly well in a natural fashion in two ways: by presenting the Mane Six as rather exceptional and even weird Ponies (so that they mostly don't seem to be courting) and by presenting Equestrian culture as rather sexually-conservative in all respects save tolerance for minority sexual orientations (so that nopony thinks it's all that strange that most of them aren't sexually active).
I could write and have written essays about this, but the internal evidence of the show seems to be that Twilight Sparkle is a complete virgin, Applejack has a tragic backstory which may also have romantic components (which is why I gave her a lost love), Pinkie Pie is neotenous and only just starting to become interested in the opposite sex, Rainbow Dash has some sort of ill-defined and possibly-merely-assumed romantic experience (I go with her starting the series a virgin and then falling in love twice during it), Rarity is almost certainly non-virginal and is obsessed with marriage (but has been burned at least once before so is now careful about giving her heart), and Fluttershy -- well, my Fluttershy's polyamorous, because she actually displays more romanticc affect in her shy way than does even Rarity, and when Fluttershy displays it, you know she's not just being dramatically-manipulative. In any case, none of them would logically marry any time soon, though two of them (Applejack and Rarity) probably would if the right stallions came along, and a third one (Pinkie Pie) is probably starting to think of the stallions around her as possible husbands.
All this works well for keeping the show externally-clean while not omitting an important aspect of the characters' lives with no adequate explanation.
Indeed.
3186301
Because it strikes at the heart of why we should only view ISIS as a targeting problem, rather than worry too much about their likes and dislikes?
3186421 I've seen progress before.
In milk and eggs.
It's called "going bad".
3186417
I suspect you're "queer" in a lot of ways, mostly ones which would make me like you all the more if I got to know you personally. Don't ever change to make other people happy -- keep being your own wonderful self!
Well, gay incest is certainly possible, but then so is straight incest. As for incest with dachshunds, that is impossible for baseline Humans, as our ancestors and theirs separated during the Mesozoic. If we genetically-modified Humans and Dogs, it might become possible someday!
Indeed. And of our savage proto-technological close kin, the chimpanzees, it's the nicer subspecies (the bonobos) who do so the most obsessively and use it as a major agent of social bonding. The nastier subspecies (the common chimpanzees) just fight each other a lot, sometimes to the death, forming alliances for this purpose.
3186600 :D